Many financial planning firms today are seeking to build long-term, valuable relationships with SME business owners. A problem you may face is accessing these people, and one route that offers great potential when carried out successfully is by building links with accountants.

However building these relationships is often a tough nut to crack! So here are a few thoughts on how you can build profitable accountant relationships, with accountants referring clients to you regularly.

Treat accountants themselves as a specific target market

You may have done all of the work developing your client value proposition (CVP), but this is aimed at your end clients – there’s no point simply sending this on to accountants in the hope that they will see the value in it. You now need to be able to communicate the value experienced by accountants in dealing with you. Your CVP starts with understanding your clients and in a similar vein, your accountant proposition starts with understanding accountants; their challenges, the partnerships that they value, where you can provide services that they will truly value etc. If you can help them to solve the problems that they face every day, well then they will place enormous value on your services! So first of all, really understand their business, identify the areas within it where you can add value, and then show them how the way that you propose working with their clients will seriously enhance their own client relationships.

This is not a once-off exercise

You then need to get in front of the accountancy partners time and time again to remind them of the value that you can add, and to ensure you get regular client referrals. There are many ways you can do this; here are a few examples,

Add the partners to your own communication programme: Connect with the partners on LinkedIn and also get their permission to be added to your newsletter subscriber list. Let them see the expertise and thought leadership that you have to offer.

Develop bespoke presentations: These are for the initial meeting with the partners throughout the practice and should focus very much on the role of the accountant and how you can assist them in their own role. Personalise each presentation to the role of the particular partner’s area of specialism – for example the presentation to the tax partner should focus on pension reliefs, tax efficient protection products and other tax angles that you can bring to the table. This shows knowledge, understanding and willingness to engage in their areas of challenge with their clients.

Case Studies: Prepare a number of case studies of innovative solutions that you’ve implemented and know are relevant to challenges that are typically faced by the accountant. Don’t leave them guessing as to how you can help, join the dots for them!

Briefings for partners: Keep the accountants briefed on issues within the life and pensions industry that they need to be aware of, but may not be that knowledgeable. This can be through email contacts, lunchtime meetings or other such channels.

Develop joint marketing activities

And then you need to also promote the accountancy firm and help their bottom line! First of all, refer clients to them whenever possible. If you give them new clients, they are certainly going to try harder to reciprocate. Then offer the accountant the opportunity to include guest posts in your newsletter. This gives the accountant welcome exposure to your clients. You can then look at hosting joint events to which you both bring clients, take a speaking slot to impress the guests, all of this with a view to both you and the accountant meeting the other’s clients and building new relationships.

Prove your value with clients

Of course the biggest barrier to accountants referring clients to you is fear. Fear that you will somehow mess up and as a result cause difficulties for the accountant with their client. So when they do take the leap and finally refer a client to you, it’s imperative that you do a good job (as you do!) and then make sure the accountant is aware of it. How do you do this? You might seek a testimonial from the client, which you then share with the accountant. Alternatively you can email the client a few weeks after the end of your work with a short client satisfaction survey – again you will share the results with the accountant.

These are just a few thoughts on building profitable relationships with accountants. Build their trust, remove their fears, align yourself to their proposition and demonstrate your value time and time again. And then you will be well on the way to breaking the back of that search for new clients!

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You’ve all been there… the fight over price. You know you’re right for the client, you can add a lot of value, but you can see there is an immediate issue niggling away. You probe the client and they say something along the lines of, “Let’s cut to the chase, what do you charge as I’m talking to another adviser who will manage my assets for 0.25% p.a.”?

Assuming you charge 0.5%, 0.75% or even 1% p.a., what do you do?

1. Now’s not the time for negotiation

The fatal mistake is to start negotiating your price now. After all, the client has absolutely no idea what they are paying for at this stage, and the value that they will get from working with you. Obviously you can’t ignore the question, but the answer needs to be along the lines of, “I can hear that our price is a key consideration for you. Let me set out what we do first, as there are a range of different options available to you”.

Don’t let yourself get dragged into a price war at this stage!

2. Go through your normal initial meeting process

This is where you take control of the meeting again. Rewind the meeting to understanding the client’s objectives (through careful, open questioning) and then presenting how and what you do. This is where you set out your advice process, your annual review meeting process and the ongoing service packages that you offer. Assuming you offer differentiated service levels for different segments of clients, your client will now see what you have to offer at different price points. If the client wants rock bottom pricing, well then he / she will see that they won’t be getting a premium service at that price level.

In order for your competitor to offer such a low price, they are probably not promising anything! So the other advantage of taking the client through your approach is that it will demonstrate the significant advantage of working with you as opposed to your competitor.

3. Be firm and brave!

Stand by your pricing as a premium advice provider. Acknowledge that you are more expensive; your client will actually respect you for this. Yes you can have lower cost packages, but within these the client should be left in no doubt about what is included and more importantly what is not.

What if the client looks for your premium service package for a lower cost? Well then you’ve a choice to make! Yes, you can be flexible, but I suggest only if there is a good reason… maybe the client is an important access point to an attractive target market, maybe you see broader opportunities with them. Don’t just agree without a reason, or otherwise you will simply start dropping your price at the first hint of a push-back from anyone. Sometimes it’s better to walk away, rather than agreeing to a price that doesn’t make economical sense to you.

4. Make sure you can deliver… and prove it

If you want to charge higher prices than your competitor, you have to able to deliver more. So it is very important that you can actually deliver what you promise. The last place you want to end up in is the dreaded “over-promising and under-delivering” experience for clients. This is the certain road to losing clients.

Of course your prospective client won’t have experienced your service at this stage of your relationship. So this is where you need to be able to call upon the experiences of other satisfied clients to add validity to your promises. This is where those client testimonials, LinkedIn recommendations and case studies of previous work come to the fore. They paint the clear picture of what your prospective client can expect.5. Add value beyond the sale

Finally look to add value beyond the sale. Are there services that you can offer to your client that sit outside of your service packages? Maybe you can provide a willing 2nd opinion on any broader issues they might have in relation to financial planning? Maybe you can give them access to a broad network of business professionals that can help them in running their business? Or maybe you can refer some of your contacts to them as potential clients?

At the end of the day, you’ve a choice to make. Is your competitive advantage based on offering your services at the lowest price, which ultimately will be a race to the bottom? Or can you offer superior value and build your business around delivering this value, at a higher price? The choice is yours!